Summary W.B. Yeats (1865-1939) is an Irish poet and dramatist. He was a leader of the Irish Renaissance and one of the foremost writers of the 20th century. Yeats is the greatest versatile poet of the century. Yeats was at heart a dreamer‚ a visionary fascinated by folk-lore‚ and the superstitions of the Irish peasantry. He was a symbolist poet. His best known collections from the latter period are: ‘The Tower’ (1928)‚ including the poems ‘Sailing to Byzantium ’and ‘Leda and Swan’ and ‘The Winding
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William Butler Yeats/Irish history. Yeats’ parents‚ Susan Pollexfen and John Butler Yeats‚ offered Yeats kinship with various Anglo-Irish Protestant families who are mentioned in his work. Normally‚ Yeats would have been expected to identify with his Protestant tradition—which represented a powerful minority among Ireland’s predominantly Roman Catholic population—but he did not. Indeed‚ he was separated from both historical traditions available to him in Ireland—from the Roman Catholics‚ because
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An inherent tension between stability and change is revealed through recurring images in Yeats’ poetry. To what extent does your interpretation of Yeats’ The Second Coming and at least one other poem align with this view? William Butler Yeats’ poetry possesses strong imagery and themes of stability and change. Two of the poems‚ which especially highlight these elements‚ are The Second Coming and The Wild Swans At Coole. Within both of these poems the recurring imagery conjures creates strong
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Yeats explores the tension between the real world and the ideal world in many of his poems. The natural world‚ rich with the peaceful sounds of honey-bees and ‘linnet’s wings’‚ is compared to the greyness of city life. He contrasts the heroic idealism of the patriots who died for Ireland with the drab merchant class who ‘add the halfpence to the pence.’ Elsewhere his poetry is alive with the tension between the feverish mortal life of ‘fish‚ flesh and foul’ and the desire for immortality. In his
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inevitability of death.” Sailing to Byzantium confronts the problems posed by advancing age. Yeats found the idea of bodily decay and decrepitude intolerable and in this poem‚ he outlines a means to escape‚ to travel in imagination to an ideal place‚ in which he will be exempt from decay or death‚ a civilization in which he can spend his eternity as a work of art. It is a definitive statement about the agony of old age. Yeats is out of place in a world teeming with youth and vitality where “the young” are “in
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with the likes of Shakespeare and Dickens‚ William Butler Yeats stands among the few writers whose work has been engraved permanently onto the walls of English literature. It is through Yeats’ exploration of themes such as the passing of time‚ fragility of human life and the inevitability of death teemed with the exploration of the idea of destruction and its relevance in all societies have enraptured readers of the modern century. Yeats’ writings have immortalised him‚ so he may never be forgotten
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What need you‚ being come to sense‚ But fumble in a greasy till And add the halfpence to the pence And prayer to shivering prayer‚ until You have dried the marrow from the bone; For men were born to pray and save; Romantic Ireland’s dead and gone‚ It’s with O’Leary in the grave. Yet they were of a different kind‚ The names that stilled your childish play‚ They have gone about the world like wind‚ But little time had they to pray For whom the hangman’s rope was spun‚ And what‚ God help
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interesting in themselves and help to make sense of the period of cultural crisis that defined abstraction‚ fragmentation‚ pastiche‚ tricks of perspective and surrealism in modern literature and painting: T.S. Eliot The Waste Land (Part 1)‚ W. B. Yeats ‘The Second Coming’‚ Gertrude Stein Picasso (selections) and paintings by Picasso and Dalí. Discussion includes the teaching advantages of the new iPad The Waste Land application and a range of easier novels. Modernism (about 1880 – 1939) is a cultural
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Yeats and Symbolism Born in 1865‚ William Butler Yeats was an Irish poet and playwright and one of the twentieth century’s foremost literary masters. Yeats is partly credited with the Irish Literary Revival and was awarded a Nobel Prize in Literature. Even though he rejected Christianity‚ Yeats was spiritual; he developed a unique‚ philosophical belief system that emphasized fate‚ historical determinism‚ and the notion that history is cyclical; Yeats eventually began using the image of a gyre to
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W.B. Yeats has created rhythm in his poem "When You Are Old" by using a familiar meter‚ simple rhyme scheme and by enhancing these forms with effective poetic devices and substitutions. Almost everyone who has studied English has read a play written by William Shakespeare. Yeats uses the same form‚ iambic pentameter‚ to create a steady rhythm that is familiar to many readers. He uses substitution feet to deviate from the regular meter and emphasize the parts of the poem he feels are important. For
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